The Scarlet Letter (The Penguin English Library)

by NathanielHawthorne (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2007

  $3.29

  Set in the harsh Puritan community of seventeenth-century Boston, this tale of an adulterous entanglement that results in an illegitimate birth reveals Nathaniel Hawthorne's concerns with the tension between the public and the private selves. Publicly disgraced and ostracized, Hester Prynne draws on her inner strength and certainty of spirit to emerge as the first true heroine of American fiction. Arthur Dimmesdale stands as a classic study of a seld divided; trapped by the rules of society, he suppresses his passion and disavows his lover, Hester, and their daughter, Pearl. As Nina Baym writes in her Introduction, The Scarlet Letter was not written as realistic, historical fiction, but as a romance , a creation of the imagination that discloses the truth of the human heart.

• Used

  Paperback
  1998

  $3.44

  When an elderly English scholar discovers his young wife in the pillory, cradling an illegitimate child and wearing a scarlet A for Adulteress, he disguises himself as a doctor and begins a cruel and destructive search for the father of the child. Set in mid-seventeenth-century Boston, this powerful tale of passion, puritanism, and revenge is one of the foremost classics of American literature. Covering the most recent developments in Hawthorne scholarship, this up-to-date edition contains full and detailed notes.

• New

  Paperback
  

  $30.84

  Nathaniel Hawthorne's greatest romance, The Scarlet Letter , is often simplistically seen as a timeless tale of desire, sin, and redemption. This work argues that The Scarlet Letter is a serious historical novel.

• New

  Hardcover
  1992

  $23.18